National Statistics Day (29 June 2026) reaffirms India’s commitment to evidence-based governance, honours P.C. Mahalanobis, and spotlights data quality, disaggregation, transparency, and institutional credibility—reminding stakeholders that trusted, timely statistics are essential for equitable policy, accountability, and democratic resilience. Reliable statistics are foundational to governance in large, diverse democracies because they convert social and economic realities into auditable inputs for planning, allocation, monitoring, and accountability. This paper argues that official statistics are constitutive — not merely supportive — of good governance, while also insisting that their governance value is conditional. Four interdependent conditions determine whether statistics strengthen governance: methodological quality and timeliness; sufficient disaggregation to reveal intra‑national inequalities; open accessibility to permit scrutiny and reuse; and institutional credibility grounded in professional independence and transparent procedures. India provides a revealing single‑country case. Rooted in the P. C. Mahalanobis tradition of survey-based planning, India’s statistical system has long underpinned development strategies. Yet contemporary pressures — a rapidly transforming economy, expanded services and informal enterprises, and new administrative data streams such as GST filings — create measurement challenges and reform imperatives. The paper synthesises literature on evidence‑based policymaking, the institutional economics of statistical capacity, and historical scholarship on India’s national statistical system to build an analytical four‑dimension framework (availability/quality, disaggregation, accessibility, credibility). Using narrative synthesis of scholarly work, official documentation, and contemporary commentary, it maps recent reform measures (base‑year revisions, strengthened informal‑sector surveys, expanded labour statistics, and public data platforms) against this framework. Five key insights emerge: (1) statistics are constitutive of democratic governance; (2) disaggregation is essential for equitable targeting; (3) Mahalanobis’s legacy links method to policy; (4) modernisation is necessary but must be well governed; and (5) credibility is distinct from technical capacity and decisive for uptake. The paper also highlights the institutional role of recurring rituals such as National Statistics Day (29 June) as moments for reflection, capacity building, and public engagement that help sustain the enabling conditions for trusted statistics. It concludes that strengthening statistical governance requires investments beyond technology and surveys: protecting professional independence, embedding transparent methodological change, partnering with subnational producers, and raising statistical literacy. In an era of data‑intensive policymaking, the credibility and openness of public statistics are central public goods for effective, accountable development. Protect statistical independence and create an empowered oversight body. Ensure predictable, documented releases and methodological transparency with back‑series. Scale granular, disaggregated subnational estimates, integrate administrative data, strengthen state capacity, expand microdata access, boost statistical literacy, institutionalise National Statistics Day, and enable grievance redress.

 

Keywords: official statistics; evidence-based policymaking; governance; statistical capacity; institutional credibility; Mahalanobis; India; National Statistics Day.